Rate and Magnitude of Past Global Climate Changes

Abstract

Abstract Existing data indicate that the Earth’s climate is probably warming. Politicians and the media typically assume this warming is the result of human activity. This article summarizes previous climate changes to test the validity of assigning causality to human activity. Records of glacial advances and retreats indicate relative summer temperature. Lacustrine and subaerial sediments afford a record of glacier advances and retreats from the Pleistocene to the present time. Palynology offers a record of species succession in response to climate changes. Dendrochronology is another indicator of summer temperature. Isotope paleontology offers a measurement of temperature at the time of marine sediment deposition, and isotopic evaluation of continental ice is an indicator of temperature at the time of precipitation. Anthropologic sources contain significant climate data such as information about villages overrun by glaciers, open-ocean iceberg density, or harbors filled with ice. Today, scientists are capable of direct measurement of climatic conditions. These sources record continual changes in climate. Broadly, the temperature changed 15 to 20°C from the Paleocene to the Neogene. Perhaps, there was as much as another 10°C change in the Pleistocene. Correlative data from North America, Greenland, and Scandinavia indicate many climate changes were truly global in scope. Although it is difficult to develop precise paleothermometry, qualitative evaluations indicate sudden and dramatic changes in climate. Some are perhaps as great as a change from conditions warmer than today to a full glacial climate in as little as 100 years. The converse can be true. Current data indicate a trend of change that is substantially severe but no greater in rate or magnitude, and probably less in both, than many changes that have occurred in the past.